Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Gingrich Calls on GOP Leadership to Pass Tax Reform by Thanksgiving

Former Speaker of the House and bestselling author Newt Gingrich spoke about the future of tax reform with Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow Monday.

“Republicans better have a pretty simple tax cut plan. I’m interested in as much reform as we can pass, but I’m not interested in writing a fancy reform bill that dies,” Gingrich said to Marlow on a Breitbart News Facebook Live event to promote his new New York Time #1 bestseller Understanding Trump.

After expressing his dismay over the congressional GOP leadership’s failure to pass either meaningful tax reform or a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare since President Donald Trump took office, Gingrich supported his recommendation for simplicity by citing the health care debacle.

“It starts by saying to Republican leaders, ‘Did you really enjoy the first six months of the year?’” Gingrich said after Marlow pointed out the lack of legislative accomplishments. “If you didn’t, would you like a better second six months?”

Gingrich then made his boldest suggestion. “I think you’ve got to get the bill done by Thanksgiving,” he said, “because it has to have a big enough economic impact in the first and second quarters next year that you’re going into the election in ’18 as the party of jobs, economic growth, prosperity, and take-home pay.”

The bill, Gingrich said, should be retroactive for all of 2017 and put the first refund checks into taxpayers’ hands no later than Christmas.

When Marlow asked about the stock market rally that began with news of Trump’s upset election win and has continued nine months without an accompanying tax cut, Gingrich was optimistic as to what could happen when the other shoe drops. “Reagan launched a boom that lasted for a quarter century,” Gingrich said, “Trump can do the same.”

Later, Gingrich got into specifics on the kind of bill he would draft. “I personally would like to see 15 percent corporate rate, a pass through to small business at the same level, significant tax cut for the middle class, and then repatriation of the trillions of dollars that are locked up overseas,” he told Marlow.

The former Speaker was neutral on whether the cuts for the middle class came in the form of a deduction or a rate reduction so long as “you have more money in your pocket by Christmas and you know you’re going to have more money next year.”

Gingrich posited that if you put the above plan, in those terms, to the American people, the necessary popular support will materialize. The true threat, according to him, is Republican disunity and a resurgent congressional Democratic caucus. “The greatest threat to fiscal conservatism in America is Nancy Pelosi as speaker,” he said.

Marlow pointed out that Democrats will inevitably try to paint a tax reform as “tax cuts for the rich,” to which Gingrich responded that business rate tax cuts will be more important for the economy and that “I haven’t said anything about changing tax rates for the rich.”

Marlow turned the conversation to the spending side, pointing to the political reality of unfunded liabilities. “One of the issues with ‘the swamp’ is that no one is going to want their program cut,” Marlow said.

Laughing, Gingrich quipped that he was thinking of following up Understanding Trump with a book called Understanding the Swamp. Including the oft-nay-saying Congressional Budget Office in the swamp, Gingrich pointed to Trump’s ability to go around the wonkish world of congressional staffers and their pet projects.

“What Trump represents in part is the victory of plainspeaking, directly focused, action-oriented cut through the red tape, and I’m trying to apply that to get to a tax cut.”